We can impose civil penalties on households which fail without reasonable excuse to inform the council of a change in circumstance that results in an overpayment of housing benefit. For more information see our civil penalties page.

How to reduce your overpayment (Underlying Entitlement)

If you did not inform us of a change in your circumstances and an overpayment is made, we can look back over the period you have been overpaid and review your entitlement.

To do this you will need to provide evidence of all your income and savings for the period of the overpayment. We can then assess the amount of benefit that you would have been entitled to if we had known your correct circumstances at the time.

For example, if you started work but didn’t tell us, we would cancel your benefit back to when you started work and an overpayment would be created. If you then provided evidence of your wages and were still entitled to benefit, the amount you would qualify for would then be deducted from your overpayment.

We can only use Underlying Entitlement to reduce an overpayment. We cannot use it to pay you any extra benefit. You will then be notified of the remaining overpayment balance that you will need to pay back.

Please note that without sufficient evidence of income and savings, it will not be possible to assess a claim for Underlying Entitlement and your overpayment will remain recoverable. You normally need to provide evidence of your income and savings within 1 month of the overpayment being notified to you.

How do we recover overpayments?

Reducing weekly benefit payments

If you still have an entitlement to housing benefit, the overpayment is recovered by reducing the weekly benefit, and offsetting the overpayment by the amount that has been deducted from the benefit entitlement.

Setting up a debtor account

This method of recovery involves setting up a debtor account and sending you an invoice that you will be responsible for paying.

Make an offer of repayment

You can make an offer of repayment by filling in our offer of repayment form.

Cash

Cheque or postal order

You can pay by cheque in person or by post addressed to Time Square. Cheques and postal orders should be crossed and made payable to Bracknell Forest council. It is not council policy to accept post dated cheques.

Standing order

This facility is much the same as a direct debit. Each month, an agreed amount is paid directly from your bank account into the debtor account. Please contact us to arrange this.

Through a bank

The back of the remittance slip that is attached to the invoice should be completed and used when paying through a bank.

What if I am unable to repay?

If you are unable to repay at the requested rate we may be able to reduce the amount of the instalments. This can be arranged by contacting us.

If you make no contact or offer of repayment, it is our policy to then seek recovery through either:

a debt recovery agent

the county court

a deduction from your salary

This will result in further costs being incurred, and these will be added to the already outstanding debt. This action will also result in a County Court Judgement.